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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23618632">Never Make Eye Contact on the Train</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fwizz101/pseuds/Fwizz101'>Fwizz101</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Post-Everything Quarantine [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, F/F, peaceful AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:08:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,056</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23618632</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fwizz101/pseuds/Fwizz101</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Fudo Rose commits a grave social faux-pas on the way to work. Or, in a more peaceful universe, cadets and Alteans can be office-mates.</p><p>[originally written 31 December 2018]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Romelle/OC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Post-Everything Quarantine [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699816</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Never Make Eye Contact on the Train</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this a long, long time ago when I was still into VLD and committed a long-time favorite OC to the fandom. Long story short, Rose is her own thing now.</p><p>There's a bit that refers to Rose's backstory, which can be summarized as this: her mother was from a planet called Athamia, and she crash-landed on Earth for reasons I can't remember anymore, so her life goal is to travel to Athamia blah blah blah.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The train rattles imperceptibly when it passes through a station, but it shakes Rose’s eyes open. This is the price she pays for using the wall as a pillow substitute. Can’t a tired student get some rest during her downtime? (The answer is a firm no.) Her internship merits a dry forty-five minute commute by way of public transportation. Why can’t the Garrison be closer to the university it partners with, huh? The stupid institution did build it, after all. Humankind explores the farthest reaches of the universe, but Earthlings still suffer from chronic traffic. Figures.</p><p>She sighs and drops her focus to a particular spot just below the seat on the opposite side of the train car. It’s the perfect place to look so no one tries to make eye contact with her. Patience is a virtue, Dad always says with that infuriating calm smile. Not everyone can wait for the perfect wife to drop out of the sky after flying from galaxies away! Everything looks easier from the finish line.</p><p>Eyes on the prize, Mom would remark. She loved aphorisms that rhyme in English, even if they wouldn’t do the same in Japanese. (The poem on her tombstone doesn’t rhyme in either language. She wanted it for its meaning; that’s the important part.) Yeah, yeah. Rose knows what the end goal is. Someday, she’ll be cleared to fly to the Athamian base and work there. She’ll see Mom’s old garden then, or at least the ruins of it.</p><p>Her phone buzzes. That’s her coworker-friend again, sending her bonus physics problems to do on the way to work. Does Ina not understand that Rose couldn’t care less about Heisenberg uncertainty right now? Astrophysics-engineering internship or not, doing pointless math makes her feel as useless as she probably is. Sure, it’s fun to a degree, but this is too far.</p><p>Rose adjusts the strap of her bag while watching the desert fly by. It’s a beautiful day to sit in a dark room and fly pilot simulations. She knows she can pass the physical examination, so this practice is almost demeaning. Can’t she just help her friends instead of going through the outdated standard procedure? No, no, Cadet Fudo, sorry, but not everyone can be a paladin of Voltron. She’s not asking for that; it’s apparently too much to want to prove herself.</p><p>For no reason in particular, she leans against the wall and gazes through the back of the train car and into the adjacent one. That one is less populated; she can see a few empty seats. The lights look more cheerful when they have room to shine. It looks almost like a cruise ship-- white with blue lines, the cloudless sky floating past in the background. Inside, a blonde with face markings reads a paperback romance.</p><p>After a moment, the girl looks up and smiles at her through the glass. Rose returns with a sheepish grin and then averts her eyes. Public transit etiquette and her disastrous tendency to flush mandate it.</p><p>Once the train stops at the Garrison’s station, she hurries off the platform. On most days, there is work waiting at her desk. It’ll help clear her head. Awkwardness can be beaten back, if not forgotten entirely. She can eat lunch with Nadia today. It finally won’t be her cleaning up afterwards. Her hand fumbles to procure her ID at the gate and run it through the scanner, but, at last, she is safely inside.</p><p>“Morning, Rose. Matt wants you to check his calculations on the file he sent you,” notes Pidge as she passes. She presses a button on the triangular drone in her hands so it floats over her shoulder. “Oh, and it’s your turn to take the cleaning shift after lunch.”</p><p>Rose lets her hand fall to the desk, making a louder sound than she expected. “Are you sure Ina didn’t just switch our names on the list again?”</p><p>Pidge snorts; she’s already leaving. “Yep. It’s definitely you.”</p><p>“Quiznak.” (Come to think of it, it’s Pidge’s fault that Rose picked that phrase up.)</p><p>The cleaning shift consists of an hour-or-more of scrubbing the kitchen down after three days of haphazard cooking. All of the superior officers and full-time crew delight in shuffling their duties to someone else, and interns are the primary target of their cruelty. It turns out that ingredients from across the universe create all sorts of semi-indelible stains. If the mess hall didn’t have such talented chefs, Rose would seriously consider going on strike.</p><p>Being the madman he is, Matt has left her a broad spreadsheet of fuel use rates across the Atlas. He loves to screw with her brain. Half of the values aren’t in standard units, the others have too many significant figures-- is he even paying attention when he plugs numbers in? Not to mention, an entire sector’s consumption is based on months, versus the deca-phoebs in the medbay log… ugh. He must have been working on a different project while calculating-- and that glyph is Altean!</p><p>She flops over her files and groans. Today is not her day. Maybe if she stares at the page long enough, her memory will supply the meaning of the characters she doesn’t recognize. Someone has shoved an Altean-English chart in her face at some point. (Not that she would memorize it; unlike Ina, her retention capacity falters after poring over the list of required kanji, and she won’t bother to push it.)</p><p>“Do you need some help?” asks a girl above her in a mildly apprehensive accent. Rose looks up, about to wave her suffering off, but she stops before her mouth opens.</p><p>The girl from the train smiles down at her, hands clasped over her chest. Her eyes are a similar color to Rose’s, but the purple blooms from her pupil. She shifts like she has found herself under a sudden spotlight.</p><p>“I-- well, I think I-- er, I don’t want to bother you-- but if you could… could tell me what-- these characters mean, that would be great.” Rose holds her breath, as if halting one involuntary action will carry over and stall her heart rate.</p><p>“Oh, alright!” chirps the girl. “My name is Romelle, by the way.”</p><p>“It’s nice to meet you,” Rose sighs, already deflating into a mortified puddle. “I’m Rose.”</p>
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